Sunday, January 25, 2015

Athletic non-competition

Here in the otherwise great state of Connecticut, the only major league professional sports team we have is the WNBA Mohegan Suns, and let's face it, professional women's basketball is not that impactful.

So, it's out UConn basketball teams that get all the attention, and the women's team even more so because they win all the time. The problem is that there isn't enough talent to go around in NCAA women's basketball, so there are only four teams in the country that are competitive. We already know who the Final Four will be. Meanwhile, in conference play, the Huskies smash everybody, ending games with two or three times as many points. The whole season is just cupcake after cupcake.

Whether this will be good for the team's popularity in the long run is hard to say. It's fun to win but watching these games just makes you cringe. You would think the success of the team would encourage high school girl's basketball in the state but in fact the only Connecticut natives on the roster are two walk-ons who only play in garbage time. Well, the entire last 30 minutes of every game are garbage time but what I really mean is the last 3 or 4 minutes. They could be regulars, of course, on any of the opposing teams.